Alex Rivera | Logout

C# code to validate email address

Asked 2009-09-02T01:01:21.453
637

What is the most elegant code to validate that a string is a valid email address?

Edit
Report

1 Answer

48

I took Phil's answer from #1 and created this class. Call it like this: bool isValid = Validator.EmailIsValid(emailString);

Here is the class:

using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

public static class Validator
{

    static Regex ValidEmailRegex = CreateValidEmailRegex();

    /// <summary>
    /// Taken from http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to-validate-an-email-address-until-i.aspx
    /// </summary>
    /// <returns></returns>
    private static Regex CreateValidEmailRegex()
    {
        string validEmailPattern = @"^(?!\.)(""([^""\r\\]|\\[""\r\\])*""|"
            + @"([-a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~]|(?<!\.)\.)*)(?<!\.)"
            + @"@[a-z0-9][\w\.-]*[a-z0-9]\.[a-z][a-z\.]*[a-z]$";

        return new Regex(validEmailPattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase);
    }

    internal static bool EmailIsValid(string emailAddress)
    {
        bool isValid = ValidEmailRegex.IsMatch(emailAddress);

        return isValid;
    }
}
answered 2011-12-18T20:54:43.427

Your Answer